Vice President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, has said the country’s power sector still lacks the right form of investments for it to make the desired impact.
This is even as the chairman of Heirs Holdings, Tony O. Elumelu, called for a market driven power sector.
Osinbajo who spoke at the opening plenary of the 23rd Nigerian Economic Summit, noted that though the government had put in place policies to drive productivity and ease of doing business in Nigeria, more still needed to be done.
Citing the power sector as an area the government has consciously created initiatives to give incentives businesses along the value chain, he noted that the sector lacked the right form of investments.
“Even with increasing generating capacity, Tony’s company and some others have obviously improved generation capacity, and generation has improved considerably, but that last mile – distribution, is absolutely important.
“We need plenty of investment, especially in distribution,” he said.
While commending the government on its initiatives and N760 billion intervention in the power sector, Elumelu said that the sector should be market-driven to create sustainability.
Elumelu urged the government to consider recapitalising the leveraged distribution companies (DISCOs) in the sector to allow capable and competent investors come in to bail out the struggling ones that were pulling the power sector back.
“If we fix power in Nigeria, we will increase our ease of doing business and make life significantly easier for investors, the SMES and entrepreneurs we are trying to nurture and indeed, every Nigerian,” he said.
He called on the government to prioritise SMEs, the creative sector and access to electricity to drive job creation, inclusive growth and the diversification of the economy.
According to him, the creative sector had a huge potential and the capability to create millions of jobs if the government addressed some of its critical challenges such as piracy and intellectual rights that would enable the sector flourish.
Addressing the urgent need to prioritise SMEs, Elumelu noted that the country desperately needed a mechanism for job creation to address inclusiveness and sustainable development.
“SMEs are the engine of growth. When they succeed, they recruit, they train people and when the likes of GE come on board they have a ready ecosystem and pipeline of supply chain players that will support what they are doing. To get it right we need to continue to prioritise our SMEs and improve the environment for SMEs to succeed,” Elumelu said.
Likewise the Vice Chairman of General Electric (GE), John Rice, responding to begin the need for localisation of the economy, urged the government to focus on improving infrastructure and the speed of government bureaucracy to attract and retain foreign investors and partners.
“The government needs to measure itself on speed as it begins to implement its reforms,” he said.
